Cold Snap

Cold Snap is a Croatian metalcore and groove metal band from Varaždin, formed there in 2003 and still a Varaždin band today. Singer Jan Kerekeš and bassist Zoran Ernoić have been with it from the start.

The first EP, Mea Culpa, came out in 2005, and the next year the band played the Metalcamp festival. Their first album, Empty Promises (2008), won them the Zlatna Koogla award for best new act of the year; they played Metalcamp a second time and shared stages with Disturbed, Limp Bizkit and Soulfly.

For the second album, Perfection, released in October 2010, they worked with Danish producer Tue Madsen, known for his work with Meshuggah, The Haunted and Dark Tranquillity. It was promoted with videos including "Bongo Bong", a cover of Manu Chao, "Snap" and "Epizoda osjećaja", with scenes from the film Fleke, and with two European tours, one of them with Pro-Pain. The third album followed in 2013, again produced by Madsen and recorded at Morris studio in Zagreb, with the videos "Silent Killer", "Monster" and "Rise Again" and tours with Hungary's Ektomorf.

After line-up changes the band won a contract with Arising Empire / Nuclear Blast in an online contest in November 2017, and in January 2018 recorded All Our Sins with Madsen at Antfarm studio in Denmark; it came out in June 2018, and tours with Jinjer and Monstrosity followed. In 2020 the double video "Black Diamond" / "Serenity", a short film with actress Iskra Jirsak, moved them towards a more modern metalcore sound. In 2022 founding guitarists Leo and Nino Friščić and drummer Dario Sambol returned; Nino died in 2025, aged 40.

At Dora 2026, the Croatian selection for Eurovision, Cold Snap sang "Mucho Macho", dedicated to Nino. They went through from the first semi-final on 12 February and finished second in the final on 15 February. The playlist is the band's own collection of music videos, from "Mucho Macho" back to "Silent Killer" and "Bongo Bong".